Friends

I've been fortunate indeed. Good people fighting the good fight have invited me to help in all kinds of ways. I've worked with community foundations from Connecticut to Nevada and Memphis to Ohio on strategic planning, communications audits, website re-thinking, and donor centrism.

Similarly, I've spent time with alternative schools in Albuquerque, a Down syndrome society in Massachusetts, a children's coalition in Rhode Island, land trusts and nature conservancies, mentoring programs, affordable housing builders, and a Nigerian cultural group on fundraising, bequest planning, social media, board retreats, and annual reports.

I'm a lucky guy. Below is a representative list of organizations with which I've been honored to work. In every case, it's the people who make the organization successful.

The National Black Doll Museum of History & Culture, halfway between Boston and Providence, is one of the coolest places I've ever been. It begins with a very sad proposition. Sisters Debra, Celeste, Felicia, and Tammy all grew up thinking that the measure of beauty and culture existed only in the white dolls that were available. They promised themselves – and other girls and boys of color – that they would reveal a much bigger world. Now the Black Doll Museum boasts a collection of more than 10,000 pieces dating back to the 1700s. More than 2,000 of those are exhibited during Christmas and include black Mr. and Mrs. Clauses that shake and shimmy, black angels and African ornaments, and my favorite: a black Santa on a moving motorcycle. I spend more time there than any museum I've ever visited.

I'd like to think I've "helped" Larry Myatt and his consulting organization, the Education Resources Consortium. He'd probably be gracious enough to say so. But the truth is, I've learned everything I know about education from him. Larry is one of the remaining handful of education provocateurs like Dennis Littky, Deborah Meier, Tony Monfiletto, and Jonathan Kozol who won't settle for mere reforms of a system that has changed little since it was first designed during the Grover Cleveland administration. ERC is not a nonprofit, but it might as well be for all the time and heart and passion Larry and his colleagues put into the urban school systems they serve. Here's his stirring TED talk in Albuquerque.